For our 'make it up as we go along' routine to Adiemus, the aim is to fly this routine with tails. Not a routine for the UK nationals, but purely for festivals. Tails on kites are popular with the public, as they add to the spectacle. Obviously, we'd like to able to fly this routine in a wide range of wind conditions, and whereas flying tails in stronger winds is not really an issue, flying them in very light wind is, as tails add weight and drag to the kites.
Something that seems to work on paper may not work in real life, so once the tails were ready, we obviously needed to test them out in the flying field. And we felt the perfect kites for this would be our pair of Fire Darts. These kites are essentially ultralights, and the thin tails would be a good visual match for the strong lines of the kites.
Well, I must say they worked an absolute treat! Even when the wind dropped down to 3-4mph, the kites had no difficulty flying the tails. As the tails are so light, they only come down slowly, so the 'after effect' after a couple of loops lasts quite some time.
The narrow tails indeed work really well visually and also colour wise: the black from the hazard tape matches the black of the red/black Fire Dart that Irma usually flies, and the yellow from the tape matches the yellow of the blue/yellow Fire Dart that is my usual kite. I don't expect the tails to last forever, as they'll probably tear quite easily. But we got another 470-odd meters left on the roll, so ....
So, coming to a festival near you: a pair of ultralight tails!
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